Other
The Growth of Delaware's Antebellum Free African American Community
Learn what it was like to be a free African American in the Wilmington community of Delaware during the 1800s. This article includes information about the types of jobs African Americans had, the property they owned, and the daily...
Other
Massachusetts Studies Project: African Americans in Massachusetts
The full title of this page is "African Americans in Massachusetts: Case Studies of Desegregation in 19th Century Nantucket and Boston." It features a timeline that covers the mid-19th century cases in Nantucket and Boston concerning the...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Free Born
A journal, an autobiography, and selections from narratives about the conditions experienced by free-born African Americans in the nineteenth century. They ask such questions as: How did African Americans construct identity in antebellum...
Discovery Education
Discovery Education: African American Population Shifts
After completing this mini-unit, students will understand some of the economic, educational, and lifestyle reasons why African Americans have moved from one place in the United States to another.
Curated OER
National Park Service: The Struggle for Education Equality for African American
"Canterbury, Connecticut, and Little Rock, Arkansas, are links in a chain of events representing the long struggle for equal educational opportunities for African Americans. This lesson plan highlights two important historic places and...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Soldiers: Making of African American Identity: 1500 1865
Photographs of and letters from black soldiers-both enslaved and free-from the late-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries that examine military experience for African Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Emancipation: Liberia, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Primary resource provides letters, statements, and photographs of free and enslaved African Americans who journeyed to Liberia to establish new lives and identities. Also includes questions for class discussion.
Other
Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Ethnic Groups Africian Americans
Perhaps one of the largest ethinc/cultural group to inhabit Arkansas are the African Americans. Follow their first arrival as slaves working the plantations through all the years toward emancipation, and into present times. Highly...
Library of Congress
Loc: African American Odyssey: Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period
Online exhibit from the Library of Congress features primary source material about free blacks from the Antebellum Period and teaches about individual accomplishments, emergence of the black church, and documenting freedom.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: The Black Press
Selections from a black newspaper, "The Colored American, "from 1837-1838 that detail the numerous issues and agendas confronting enslaved and free blacks.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Fugitives, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Oral and written narratives of the experiences of the Underground Railroad and documents identifying efforts by northern societies to free slaves during the 1850s.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Forever Free: The 1870s: Education
Read about the development of free education for African Americans following the emancipation of this enslaved population. This article focuses on schools in Texas, including what is now known as Texas A&M University. Includes a...
Digital History
Digital History: African American Churches
African American churches served black congregations. Read about the several church denominations that were established in the early 1800s.
Library of Congress
Loc: Abolition
This site, which is provided for by the Library of Congress, is part of the African American Mosaic. It describes abolition and gives references to books about the topic.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Forever Free: The 1870s: Representation
Read about the political climate in 1870s Texas and two governors elected during this time, Republican Edmund J. Davis and Democrat Richard Coke. Focuses primarily on how African Americans were affected by the leadership of each governor.
PBS
Africans in America: American Colonization Society
Learn about the views of the American Colonization Society (ACS) and about their efforts to send free blacks to Liberia. This website briefly overviews how the ACS started and how their efforts lead to the emigration of thousands.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Africans Ii, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Three illustrations and five documents about slave codes, master-slave power dynamics, and free blacks within French and Spanish settlements of the Caribbean.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute: History Now: Women and the Great Depression
[Free Registration/Login Required] A very interesting essay showing how the Great Depression affected women as housewives and as employees. See how many New Deal programs discriminated against women, and find out who supported women's...
New York Times
New York Times: Insurance Policies on Slaves: New York Life's Complicated Past
[Free Registration/Login Required] This article describes the controversial history of New York Life Insurance. In 1846 the company began selling insurance policies to slave owners in the South that guaranteed compensation if a slave...
Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica: Archie Shepp
Learn about the life of Archie Shepp, African American tenor saxophonist, composer, dramatist, teacher, and pioneer of the free jazz movement.
New York Times
New York Times: Harriet Tubman's Path to Freedom
[Free Registration/Login Required] This site tells the story of Harriet Tubman's life and the development of the Underground Railroad. The author takes us on a journey to sites along the Underground Railroad, beginning at the farm where...
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Forever Free: The 1870s: The Constitutional Convention of 1875
A Constitutional Convention was held in Texas in 1875 as a reaction to Reconstruction. See how the gains made by the Republican Party, which included African American legislators, were negated by the Democratic Party when it gained control.
CommonLit
Common Lit: "Showdown in Little Rock" by Us history.org
A learning module that begins with "Showdown in Little Rock," accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. The text can be printed as a PDF or assigned online through free teacher and student...
Blackdog Media
Classic Reader: "La Juanita" by Alice Dunbar
Text of the short story "La Juanita" by Alice Dunbar. (Free site registration offers some additional features, e.g., the ability to insert annotations.)